Chapter One
As the scales began to tip, and his years away from Satan’s Soul began to outnumber his years spent under the sharp heel of his father’s boot, Gunner’s nightmares began to ease. As it was, they weren’t something he ever talked about. It didn’t matter that none of his brothers in the Chains found them shameful—or that half of them also woke late at night, choking on their own trauma as it lodged like a stone in the backs of their throats.
His job as VP was to be better—to be an example, to lead and to follow, but it was hard to find the strength to believe in himself when the vision of his gnarled old man laughing as he was beaten half to death could still bring him to his knees. He wished he had a way to predict the flashbacks. Like the anniversary of the beating, or the anniversary of when he finally got free. Instead, life lulled him into a false sense of security, giving him a taste of freedom from those memories, and then… they’d strike.
Gunner woke abruptly from the visions, cruel and vicious, just like his former club had been, and swallowed against the taste of old blood in his mouth. Bracing himself on his stronger arm, he pushed to his feet and stumbled into the kitchen for water. The little window above his sink looked out into the swampy forest, and it allowed him a moment of peace for his hands to stop shaking. He’d quickly learned to curb his outward reactions to the nightmares. Sometimes he couldn’t stop the screams, but knowing his baby sister was in the small room next to his was enough for even his subconscious to take better care at hiding when they got the best of him.
His life now with the Broken Chains wasn’t something he’d asked for, but it was better than he had before he found them. He’d been born Miles Foster, son of a nobody with a member patch in a Satan’s Souls West Coast chapter. He knew his father by one name, Poker, and the man looked fifty by the time he was twenty-five. Gunner couldn’t remember a time the bastard could chew his food with his own teeth, not that he ever saw him eat much. He survived on whiskey, what was at the bottom of his glass pipe, and the endless supply of cheap, hand-rolled cigarettes that made everything smell like rot and ash.
He’d had a mother once, but she had taken off with his older sister, Olivia, long before he could form tangible memories of her, and he’d been beaten enough times as a kid to learn that asking about her was off the table. Of course, his dad would introduce some club slut every couple of weeks as his new mommy, and he hadn’t bothered to learn their names after a while. They were all the same—strung out, shaking, desperate, sad. They existed almost like a promise of what his own life would become, and it scared the shit out of him once he was old enough to realize he had so little choice in his future.
He felt trapped in Satan’s Souls, but escape wasn’t really an option.
At least, not until he’d made the best worst mistake of his entire life.
Gunner had figured out early on that he wasn’t like the other men in the club. Even as his hormones began to work him up, his eyes didn’t stray to half-dressed bitches ready to bend over for any guy who asked.
He wanted to blame Rook for it—the young upstart, son of the President and some nameless bitch who was gone long before Gunner was old enough to care. Rook was nothing like his dad, and it was probably why Gunner couldn’t take his eyes off him.
He had dark eyes and a smirk he could get lost in for days. His voice was low, rumbling, and Gunner wanted to know what it would sound like in his ear as Rook pushed inside him and made it hurt. And with the way Rook stared at him across the room, Gunner knew the other kid wanted it too.
In the dark hours just before dawn, Gunner left his door unlocked, and Rook didn’t hesitate to walk in. Their first time had been a fumbling mess. Two idiot teenagers committing one of the most forbidden acts, which made it that much hotter. Both of them wanted it, neither of them were willing to admit it, but Gunner didn’t shy away when Rook pushed his face into the mattress, spread his cheeks apart, and shoved a spit-slick finger into his hole. It was everything and nothing like he imagined, and it was one of those defining moments that told Gunner that was who he was. He might never say it aloud—hell, he’d probably cut out his own tongue before admitting it even to himself, but there was no denying the truth when it stared back at him in the mirror the next morning.
After that, Gunner spent too many nights muffling screams into his sheets as Rook took him too dry, and too fast, and too hard. But he loved it—in a fucked-up, angry way, he’d loved that his body was being defiled in ways that his club would never forgive him for.
He had just turned eighteen when the Prez walked into his room and found them together, and it was no surprise when Rook let Gunner take the blame. Gunner was a nobody, after all. He meant nothing. Rook simpered and swore Gunner had drugged him, seduced him, begged him, bribed him.
Retribution was swift. Two enforcers dragged him out back and rained blows down on him without mercy. He knew they should have killed him, and maybe it was an accident that they walked away too soon, or maybe they just took pity on him.
Or hell, maybe they wanted him to live, because the suffering of survival lasted a whole hell of a lot longer than bleeding to death would have. But, whatever the reason, he’d been left there on the side of the street and some poor bastard called the paramedics.
He woke up three days later with stitches in his head, a tremor in his weakened left hand, and the left side of his face numb and motionless. For a short, hopeful moment he thought he’d heal, until the doctor fixed him with a grave stare and told him the damage was permanent. And he supposed it was a fitting consequence for a man who would never be allowed to be himself. He realized after that they really had wanted him to live—with a constant, visible mark that he suffered the consequences of pissing off the status quo.
He’d stare at his reflection some days, at the way only the right side of his mouth would lift with his fake grin, and he’d know why.
It took him another seven years and the birth of his baby sister to finally give him the courage to run. He overheard a whispered conversation between the Enforcer and the VP about the bright-eyed little infant one of the club sluts had dropped off in Poker’s lap. “She’ll make us some cash the moment she starts walking. I know some fucked-up guys who pay up the ass for that kind of sick shit.”
Gunner, who had been in charge of making sure that small, clueless, helpless baby woke up with every sunrise and slept safely with every sunset, lost his mind. Only, he didn’t rampage. He didn’t scream, or yell, or fight them.
Instead, he made a choice that would likely haunt every one of his steps for the rest of his life. He’d called Olivia—the only one of them who’d gotten out. She was a lawyer and she had with contacts in law enforcement. He brought the establishment to Satan’s Souls’ doorstep to protect Maddie, and he’d gladly suffer any consequence for it, because it meant she was safe.
Two months later, with custody papers in hand and his father being held by the balls, Gunner left the state and never looked back.
And they’d find him one day and make him pay for it—he knew that much. But for now, they were safe. For now, he regretted nothing.
“Mimi?”
He turned his head at the sound of the name Maddie had given him that he hadn’t quite been able to shake, even after she began to speak in full sentences, and he offered her his half-grin. “Hey, Cricket, what are you doing up?”